As part of answering Reader Questions this week, I'm going back to something that Glenn Ross asked me awhile ago: If I'm responsible for L&D in my organization, how can I help my employees identify their PLEs (personal learning environments) and what resources do I need to provide for them? Apparently Glenn likes to ask the tough questions. But I'm feeling brave, so I'm going to try for an answer...
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As soon as I finished posting about moving your organization's website from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0, I see in my feed reader (via The Agitator) that Todd Cohen at Philanthropy Journal has published a report on how nonprofits are using new media to engage constituents. Todd makes an excellent point about needing to change your operational paradigms, not just the look, feel and functionality of your web presence: "Nonprofits...
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Last week I posted on RSS-enabling your website so that visitors can subscribe to your regularly updated content. As I mentioned in that post, and as Laura Whitehead brought up in comments, RSS only makes sense, though, when your website actually provides timely news and information. If your site is simply an online brochure, then RSS isn't going to do much for you. This got me to thinking about the...
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Just stumbled across a REALLY interesting blog called The Architectures of Control. It's maintained by Dan Lockton who says: Increasingly, many products are being designed with features that intentionally restrict the way the user can behave, or enforce certain modes of behaviour. The same intentions are also evident in the design of many systems and environments. Dan goes on to define architectures of control this way: Architectures of control are...
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Question for the Day: Why does the face-to-face model of sharing information persist? Currently I'm working with a state-wide group of youth providers working on a specific grant. One member recently circulated an email asking if people were interested in meeting for a few days and if they were, what did they want to accomplish? Within minutes, several emails came back indicating that 1) getting away to a meeting would...
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In the past few days, I've found a number of new portals online. I'm starting to wonder if we can't learn a thing or two from what's happening. First, via Eisenblog, came Open Learn University's portal, created by Stuart Brown in Netvibes to support OU students and instructors. Then I find Crimson Connect, the student-run Harvard University portal, developed in the wake of student dissatisfaction with Harvard's "Official" website. (Take...
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Beth Kanter points to blogger Brian Kelly's page of blog experiments. Here, Brian records experiments he's running on his blog and their results. For example, he looks at what happens when he has a guest blogger or when he adds a widget to his sidebar. A typical experiment write-up looks like this: TitleSonific Wordpress sidebar widget. Reasons For ExperimentTo explore possible benefits of this particular plugin and, more importantly, to...
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Glenn Ross made my blogging job easier the other day by sending me a list of topics he wanted to see me write about related to personal learning environments. One of those questions was: Is there any data linking personal learning environments to management styles (DISC) or personality types? The short answer to that question is "no." Or at least I couldn't find anything that specifically looked at either DISC...
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Paul Potts is a cell phone salesman in the UK. He's completely unassuming--bad teeth, a little overweight, not much of a dresser. The last person you'd imagine taking the stage as a serious contestant on Britain's Got Talent, the UK version of American Idol. But beneath that quiet exterior is a most amazing voice. It literally gave me chills to listen to him. And it made me wonder how much...
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Just back from a conference where I had an interesting exchange during a session I was conducting on providing services in a global economy. I was presenting to a state-wide group of government and nonprofit workers who help people access education and find jobs. We were discussing how business has changed the ways in which it operates and how these organizations could utilize some of the new principles for operating...
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